Tag: Bill Potts

It’s a month since the Doctor fell. Jokerside took the final journey of the Twelfth Doctor head on with in-depth reviews of every episode. Here’s the digested series review…

THE TENTH SERIES OF DOCTOR WHO SWEPT THROUGH SPRING AND SUMMER LIKE MANY BEFORE, BUT THIS YEAR WAS TINGED WITH THE BITTERSWEET. Like the oily tears of a Cyberman or the salted pulp of a sewer Dalek, it was more bittersweet than most. There was the promise of a new companion, the co-opting of a mysterious, yet familiar, secondary companion, and then the demise of not just the Twelfth Doctor, but Missy too – a mark of just how significant the latest incarnation of the Master has become during this Doctor’s tenure. Or perhaps more pertinently: how significantly the show has spun towards strong and popular female characters since showrunner Steven Moffat’s first couple of series battled accusations of misogyny as much as the Children of Skaro. Central to that had to be Bill, undoubtedly one of the New Series‘ greatest companions.

While hopes were high for the Tenth Series, particular coming on the back of a still marginally inexplicable break and two weak, bordering, on torrid Christmas specials, the recent past posed its own challenge. The Twelfth Doctor’s first year, Series Eight, was crippled by a myopic investigation of the Doctor’s nature – and was rather morose as a result. To the point of ending in a rain-soaked graveyard. Series Nine was a blistering, two-parter packed adventure that flew past, hitting the spot more often than not, but was ultimately crippled by a failure to realise its long promised arc (Chekov’s Hybrid as we call it around here). So all too quickly, the Twelfth Doctor who promised so much, under the steer of the show’s most prolific writer, faced a final journey with an unnecessarily steep climb.

Following the final journey

Fortunately for everybody, Jokerside was there with a pen in hand to take on this final sequence. In-depth reviews of each episode broke down the running arcs, keeping a close eye on the Doctor, uncovering the everyday hooks that are essential to quality Who, and bolting on a Jokerside view askew.

Everyday hooks, a lifeblood of classic Doctor Who, ranged from the reflection that wasn’t quite right in The Pilot and the horrors of shared student accommodation in Knock Knock to hangovers truly getting worse with age in The Pyramid at the End of the World.

Our Jokerside reimaginings carried the flight of fancy from Smile as a remake of Red Dwarf’s Waiting for God, to the deep space perils of Oxygen as the Vashta Nerada chasing Moffat tropes around a space station for eternity, and repainted the rather torrid, mid-series Monk trilogy as an affable sitcom.

There was a distinct sense that this final Moffatt run took its chance to rework and reevaluate ideas plucked from his tenure as show-runner, to the point of veering to a Whisper Man, a Silent and an invading monk walking into a bar and taking a long, long time to order…

Completing the arc

But contrary as ever, perhaps the series greatest success was its arc. As a Norse and sea monster thread ran through the ninth year, a militaristic one through the eighth, the tenth series never wandered far from capitalism. At points, it was as sublime as it was illogical (Oxygen), but any power that came with its link to slavery early in the year were sadly frittered away by the time the last three episodes came around. It seemed that all the main series arc had to do was reach an end-point to beat Series Nine‘s. In fact, the vault arc was unbelievably vital. Jokerside may have guessed that the occupant was everyone from a Time Lord Watcher to a Spare Parts Cyberman. But by the time the astounding series finale came round, completing a series that had truly, really been all about friendship in general, and the Doctor and Missy’s in particular, it had effectively smashed through the idea of an arc. That arc had become the essence of the episodes itself, and ultimately showed itself, refreshingly, to be an utter failure.

Here’s our evaluation of every episode, with our contrary school-rating for each adventure. Stay to the end of the credits for our overall series score…

The Pilot

“Scared is good, scared is rational”

We said: “A seemingly effortless return to the essence of Doctor Who, although the shoe-horning of a safe science-fiction plot brought back as many bad habits as fantastically off the wall nods to the past. High successful and captivating box ticking, The Pilot is a great start. While deceptively morbid at moments, it’s mostly docked points for its return of a rather careless, destructive and unwarranted Doctor.”

Rating: B

Smile

“We’re in a utopia of vacuous teens”

We said: “Smile was more about reassurance than setting a new bar. At the heart there’s a concept too weak to maintain its early promise, and the slightest hint of a lack of confidence is carried in its pre-title sequence. It’s the perfect showcase for the increasingly impressive chemistry brewing in the TARDIS control room, and crucially it features a Bowie quote (“Hope you’re happy too…”). But the impression that there could have been so much more remains long after the ‘Next Time’ rolls. While Frank Cottrell Boyce’s first story for the series hid amidst the closing throes of a series, his latest is likely to remain hidden in the opening waves.”

Rating: C

Thin Ice

We said: “‘Despair, loneliness, a prisoner in chains’ — that’s the sorry centre of a glowing story. There’s an immensely Christmas vibe to Thin Ice, and that isn’t just found in the fair and frozen water below. It has the feel of a special. It tackles spectacle, contemporary issues and morality — from the ‘good guys’ constant five-fingered discounts, to the privileged discrimination and exploitation on the side of the bad. It’s quintessential Who, but that unfortunately also comes to bear on a (traditionally) undercooked aristo-villain. Still, 4th February 1814 done. Superbly done. From the show’s natural obsession with death to historical adventure, to ethics, to the challenges and changes of a time past. And all without the slightest mention of ‘Timey-Wimey’.”

Rating: A-

Knock Knock

“Mercy at last.”

We said: “It escapes the shadow of Blink, and its weirdly contrived student set up, but only just. Knock Knock leaves a veritable list of questions in its wake — or perhaps, whatever a collective noun for lists is. And that undermines a lot of its effective, atmospheric work, its guest cast, and costs it a rating. It’s saved by two impressively horrible scenes where being wooden is wholly jaw-dropping. But overall, while only mildly denting the quality of the current run of stories, and keeping the horror vein alive and twitching, it proves to be so much less than the sum of its parts. Here’s hoping that all who worked on it, return to fine-tune their next adventure.”

Rating: C-

Oxygen

“We’re fighting an algorithm”

We said: “But what an algorithm this series has hit. Oxygen’s based on a heavily layered idea, which requires a big explanation. But it rocks along in a claustrophobic, well-realised way that barely spares you time to question the logic of defining workers by breaths. Even if that aspect doesn’t quite cut the mustard, the heavy anti-capitalist sentiment is exactly what Doctor Who should be doing. Because: Why not?

Most astonishing, is that Oxygen cuts a sharp miserable and nihilistic note that reflects an emergent tone of the series. It’s “the end point of capitalism, the bottom line where human life has no value at all”. And the only good news is that having solved one minor battle, the damaged Doctor will lurk around for ”the human race (to) find a whole other mistake”. It’s bold stuff, and more than an exemplary example of the long-worn base under siege story. Its big win is providing a strong start and a true resolution. Like (Mathieson’s earlier) Mummy on the Orient Express, it takes those core issues that are simmering at the heart of the year and ties them up in a strong episode. Mathieson strikes again, elevating Moffat’s broad palette in a series that’s struggled to do the same so far.”

Rating: A-

Extremis

“Only in darkness are we revealed”

We said: “The Da Vinci Code, The Matrix, Harsh Realm, that time the cat next door jumped into your face twice… The construct of a false, AR world is well developed in popular culture and action science-fiction. But Extremis isn’t really about the concept as much as the set-up. For that reason, come the end it doesn’t quite feel that its heart is in it. In fact, it all hinges on an email, and that’s not quite enough to make up for the inner-misery and horrors the TARDIS crew are rather mean-spiritedly put through.

It’s a paradox, unfairly with the score and promise that comes with the arrival of a peak season three-parter, is that it seems wrong that the tenth series is kicking into gear with an episode so different from its predecessors. If it’s intended as a neater remake of the Eleventh Doctor’s arcs, Extremis is a great success. But let’s hope the real homage comes in the confirmation that this is all be part of something more. And I don’t quite mean AR.” Continue reading “Doctor Who Series 10: The Final Verdict on the Twelfth Doctor’s Final Journey”